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People are hiding from health care workers. New cases are turning up in unexpected places. At funerals, family members don't always follow the advice not to touch the body of the deceased, which may still harbor the deadly virus.
These are a few of the signs that, in the words of public health specialist Armand Sprecher of , the Ebola outbreak that began in West Africa in February is "not under control yet."
The first cases were in Guinea, but the virus has since spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia. The death toll has risen to 330, making this the deadliest Ebola outbreak since the disease was first detected in 1976. The staff of Doctors Without Borders is "overwhelmed" by the need to set up new isolation wards and track down people who may be infected, Sprecher told NPR's Jason Beaubien.
In past outbreaks, there have been what are called "satellite cases," where the disease appears in different locations. But "not nearly as many as we've seen in this outbreak," says Sprecher. That may be because people move around a lot in West Africa.
Not to belittle the suffering of those involved but you are acting as if this is some huge deal...it isn't. It is sadly just another in a long line of little tragedies that affect humanity all over the world. This time it happens to be Africa's turn....
Sometimes a virus can cause more devastation than all the worlds armies. In 1918, at the end of World War I, influenza spread around the planet, reaching even Pacific islands and Arctic villages. The virus infected a third of all people on earth, and caused an estimated 50 million deaths more than three times the number of people killed in World War I.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/science/in-1918-flu-pandemic-timing-was-a-killer.html?_r=0
Not to belittle the suffering of those involved but you are acting as if this is some huge deal...it isn't. It is sadly just another in a long line of little tragedies that affect humanity all over the world. This time it happens to be Africa's turn....
Sometimes a virus can cause more devastation than all the worlds armies. In 1918, at the end of World War I, influenza spread around the planet, reaching even Pacific islands and Arctic villages. The virus infected a third of all people on earth, and caused an estimated 50 million deaths more than three times the number of people killed in World War I.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/science/in-1918-flu-pandemic-timing-was-a-killer.html?_r=0
Outbreaks like 1918 and the black death are reasons to take ebola seriously. Kills a very high rate of its victims.
(CNN) -- The deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has hit "unprecedented" proportions, according to relief workers on the ground.
"The epidemic is out of control," Dr. Bart Janssens, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement.
There have been 567 cases and 350 deaths since the epidemic began in March, according to the latest World Health Organization figures.
Ebola virus outbreaks are usually confined to remote areas, making it easier to contain. But this outbreak is different; patients have been identified in 60 locations in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Officials believe the wide footprint of this outbreak is partly because of the close proximity between the jungle where the virus was first identified and cities such as Conakry. The capital in Guinea has a population of 2 million and an international airport.
Outbreaks like 1918 and the black death are reasons to take ebola seriously. Kills a very high rate of its victims.
* West Africa Ebola outbreak already deadliest
* Health ministers meet in Accra to mull solutions
* Liberia warns against illegally harboring patients (Adds Liberia comments, updated graphics link)
By Tom Miles
GENEVA, July 1 (Reuters) - The number of deaths attributed to an epidemic of Ebola virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone stood at 467 by Monday, out of 759 known cases in total, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
The outbreak of the deadly disease is already the largest and deadliest ever, according to the WHO, which previously put the death toll at 399 as of June 23, out of 635 cases.
The 17 percent rise in deaths and 20 percent jump in cases in the space of a week will add urgency to an emergency meeting of 11 West African health ministers in Accra, Ghana on Wednesday and Thursday, which aims to coordinate a regional response.
Health officials in West Africa say 25 more people have died from Ebola since 3 July, taking the total number of deaths to 518.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said 50 new cases of the deadly disease had also been reported.
A WHO spokesman said health workers were struggling to contain the outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
On Monday, a doctor in Ghana said preliminary tests on a US citizen showed he did not have the disease.
But further tests are now being carried out.
The man had recently visited Sierra Leone and Guinea and was quarantined after showing signs of the virus.
'A mixed picture'
In a statement on Tuesday, the WHO said the latest figures from health ministries in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea showed a total of 844 cases since the epidemic began in February.
Health officials were combing Monrovia's West Point area that is home to at least 50,000 people to try to stop the virus from spreading further in a country where more than 400 people already have died. The World Health Organization on Monday urged Liberia and other Ebola-affected countries to screen all passengers leaving international airports, sea ports and major ground crossings. Those with symptoms of the virus also were urged not to travel. Many airlines have halted services to the capitals of Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone.
The weekend chaos in Monrovia highlights the growing unease and panic in Liberia amid the mounting Ebola death toll and illustrates the risks of further instability in this deeply impoverished country where mistrust of the government runs high. In addition, health workers are complaining about a lack of protective gear. Treatment centers are viewed by many as a place where people go just to die. "They are not happy with the way Ebola is being managed and the response that the government is providing," said Koala Oumarou, country director for the aid group Plan Liberia, which is helping the health ministry to raise awareness. "It's where the frustration is coming from."
Liberia's president already has declared a state of emergency, dispatching armed soldiers to enforce quarantines of infected areas. But little was done Saturday to stoop looters from invading the Ebola quarantine center and taking items covered in bodily fluids that now could only further transmit the gruesome virus, witnesses said. Ebola is spread through direct contact with the blood, vomit, feces or sweat or sick people. "This West Point situation really was our greatest setback since we started this fight, and we are working on making sure that we can correct that situation," Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown told The Associated Press. "We have learned a bit of bitter lesson here," he added.
Witnesses say an angry mob attacked the West Point facility, a "holding center" for people who had been exposed to Ebola and were being monitored during an incubation period for signs of the disease. The looters took medical equipment, and mattresses and sheets that had bloodstains, said a senior police official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists. "All between the houses you could see people fleeing with items looted from the patients," the official said, adding that he now feared "the whole of West Point will be infected."
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Rumors are rife that Western aid workers are importing Ebola, stealing bodies or even deliberately infecting patients. Winning trust is made harder by a full suit of hood, goggles, mask and gown that hides their faces. "You want to say so much ... because they're in so much pain," said nurse Monia Sayah, of Doctors Without Borders. "They suffer so much, but they can only see your eyes." The outbreak has hit three of the world's poorest countries, where health systems there were already woefully understaffed and ill-equipped. In Liberia, there is only one doctor for every 100,000 people, while in Sierra Leone there are two, according to the World Health Organization; there were no statistics available for Guinea. The figure is 245 for the United States.
Emotional distress conspires with exhaustion and dehydration, but doctors say it's hard to stop working. "When the need is so great, you can't justify not being there for a day or going home earlier," said Dr. Robert Fowler, who recently worked in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The critical care doctor at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, Canada - now on sabbatical with the World Health Organization - said that the barrier of the protective suit is big but not insurmountable. "There was a young girl, about 6, who came in late in the illness who was bleeding from her bowels, very dehydrated and delirious," he said. Ebola wiped out her immediate family - so she was all alone. "She was very frightened and very reluctant to engage, and just wanted to push people away," he said. Fowler spent days trying to help her, bringing her things she wanted like Fanta soda. "She eventually developed this sense that this person in the suit who's a bit scary is trying to help me."
One day he brought the girl her favorite dish: cucumbers and lime. "She chowed down," he said - a sign that she was on the mend. Fowler said the girl was close to being discharged by the time he left Guinea. The girl is the exception rather than the rule. Death is the fate of more than half of the West Africans infected in the Ebola outbreak. "With the mortality rate being what it is," Fowler said, "you know every day there will be a couple of patients on your ward who didn't make it through the night." Dr. Kent Brantly - an American who fell sick from Ebola last month treating patients - echoed Fowler in speaking of the moral weight of the struggle. "I held the hands of countless individuals as this terrible disease took their lives away from them," Brantly said in a statement this month. "I witnessed the horror firsthand and I can still remember every face and name."
Brantly is now being treated in an Atlanta hospital. His condition was improving. Sayah, the nurse, said that heat makes it impossible to work continuously for more than an hour. It means tasks have to be completed with near-military precision. Her makeshift Ebola tent hospital in Gueckedou, southern Guinea, was converted from an earlier clinic set up by Doctors Without Borders to handle cholera epidemics. "If you have to do patients' blood work and IVs, you focus only on this, and you know your other team members will get the patients food and drink," she said. The tough odds don't make it easier to see a patient die.
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